The Empty Tomb
by All The Umbrellas In London
Summary: When the TARDIS lands on a long-dead world, the Doctor and Amy join a team of archaeologists... but what lies in the empty tomb?


_Featuring the Doctor and Amy as played by Matt Smith and Karen Gillan._

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**A**nother alien planet.

Amy Pond flung open the TARDIS doors, and that familiar feeling rose up in her chest. Excitement, apprehension, joy. It was the feeling of adventure. She'd been to the past, the future, to asteroid museums and ancient mausoleums, to Venice and Provence, across time and space, and this feeling never ceased to grip her, to grasp onto every fibre of her being, whenever she opened the doors onto a new setting, a new story.

Eyes wide, grinning like a maniac, she stared out into an alien day… only to be looking a bleak, grey landscape; as lifeless as the moon, but smoothed out, flat, worn away by millennia of erosion. The sky was a deep purple-black, with faint stars shimmering away, and a small, dark red sphere in the distance.

Her face fell.

A thin breeze, neither warm nor cool, ruffled her long red hair, as though to emphasis just how bland this sight was.

"Oh," she said, not a little disappointed.

"Mmm?" said the Doctor, speaking up from behind her.

She turned to find the man who brought her here, who had taken her across the universe and back, still hunched over the TARDIS' central console, adjusting a few controls.

As if in contrast to Amy's bright yellow and black striped jumper, rolled up at the sleeves, and black miniskirt, the Doctor was dressed like a semi-fashionable university lecturer, in his tweed jacket and bowtie. He was staring intently at the console, still smoking a bit from their last trip through the vortex.

"This new planet, Doctor. Not great shakes, is it?"

"Isn't it?" the Doctor asked, barely interested.

"No," Amy repeated, setting her jaw and crossing her arms. "It's not. Why are we here? Where is here?"

The Doctor shrugged. "No idea. Set in on random. Old girl took us for a bit of a spin."

Making her way over to the console, Amy took a chance to look around the console room. It had been a shock, the first time she'd gone inside, this immense room of machinery that seemed to glow with an inner light, squeezed inside of an odd blue box that had first shown up in her back garden fourteen years earlier.

Now, everything from the massive time rotor in the centre of the console, to the red, brown and orange bulkheads, from the roundels that studded the walls, to the large round viewer that showed the occupants the universe outside, right down to the taps and typewriter and telephone and gramophone bolted on the console felt as close to home as she had ever known.

There was nothing back in Leadworth, of course, except for her big old house and Mrs. Pogget.

Just Amy Pond and the Doctor in the TARDIS, the universe at their fingertips.

"But where are we, Doctor? And do we have to stay?"

"Do we have to?" the Doctor asked, whirling on her. His eyes blazed for a second, before he shrugged. "No, we don't. But we should! Big planet, Amy Pond, bound to be something."

"Nothing but dust out there," she insisted.

"Really? Whole planet of dust?" The Doctor frowned. "That doesn't sound right."

"Well, I don't know," Amy admitted, "but dust was all I could see."

He began to work the TARDIS controls, and the monitor attached to the console came to life. "Ahh, yes, but the eyes aren't the only things you can see with."

Amy laughed. "Is that so?"

"Yes it is, Pond," the Doctor said. "We're on X-37-Strawberry-92. Otherwise know as Na."

"Na?" Amy asked. She stretched out the name. "Seriously?"

"I'm always serious," the Doctor said, shooting her a withering glance before grinning. "Old planet, very old, home to an ancient civilisation. But you're right, mostly dust."

"Mostly?"

"It's what happens," the Doctor shrugged. "The primary in this system started to die, and the planet went with it. No native lifeforms, as far as anyone ever knew… but there is evidence of habitation. Oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, Earth normal temperatures. Which is weird."

"Why?"

"Planet's dead, atmosphere should be long gone…" the Doctor said, frowning. "There's a lot of subterranean structures. Tunnels, shafts."

"Mines?" Amy asked, proud of herself; she was picking up on the time-space travelling thing.

"Maybe," the Doctor agreed, examining the monitor. "But the structure is too, well, thought out. Planned. Not mines… catacombs. Tombs."

"Oh, wonderful," Amy groaned. She shuddered, remembering the Weeping Angels and Alfava Metraxis. "Not more tombs."

"More tombs, I'm afraid. And this atmosphere… it's a magnetic field, keeping it in. Artificial, technological and coming from…" he hit another control, and the massive viewer on the far wall came to life.

Amy turned, and let out a long, low whistle. "Now, that's impressive."

"Please. That? It's red."

On the viewer was a long, sleek looking rocket, landed in what looked like a broad canyon between two dusty ridges.

"Hey!" Amy said, flicking her hair. "Red's a good colour."

Though dust marred the ship's crimson hull, it was still a beautiful looking craft. There was a cluster of tents near the craft, an a well-worn track leading towards the base of one of the mounds. A tunnel had been freshly carved into hill, and led into blackness.

"Oh, that is very not good."

"What? What's very not good?"

The Doctor stared intently at the viewer. "Well, two things. First of all… your jumper."

"My what?"

"Black and yellow stripes? You look like a bumblebee!"

Amy's jaw dropped, and she aimed a punch at the Doctor's shoulder. "And you? With your stody jacket and your bowtie."

"Hey!" the Doctor protested. "Bowties are—"

"Cool, yes, I know. I found this in the TARDIS wardrobe. For an infinite dimension inside a Police Box, your fashion options are a bit limited," Amy explained. "Besides, I can pull it off."

The Doctor made a noise in agreement.

"What's the other very not good thing?"

Nodding towards the viewer, he said, tone darkening. "This planet has been charted. It's long dead, no point in colonising. There are tombs stretching every which way beneath us. That means that those people can only be one thing."

"And what's that?"

The Doctor took a deep, steadying breath. "Archaeologists."

Amy almost burst out laughing. "What's wrong with archaeologists?"

"In space, Amy, everything's wrong with archaeologists. They're always blundering into places they don't belong. Like tombs, or libraries that actually are tombs with shadows that eat people."

"Shadows that eat people?"

The Doctor arched an eyebrow. "Long story. Come along, Pond, let's find out what these people are up to, so we can put a stop to it."

Without a further word, he was off across the console room, with Amy almost running to keep up.


End file.
